Ian Nagoski reviews Music From The Mountain Provinces in The Wire 367: "David Blair Stiffler, who had previously recorded music of South and Central American tribal groups for Lyrichord and Folkways, made these recordings in 1988. Political turmoil apparently led to him being held hostage and having his gear confiscated. And when he returned home Moe Asch, the head of Folkways for whom the recordings were made, was dead. The story fits with other Numero tales of legendary lost records, but it’s less important than the recordings. With the rapid extinction of languages, spoken and musical, of ethnic groups around the world, documents of this kind are significant."